We’ve lost Christianity-Andrew Strom

Posted by appolus on May 29, 2013

Despite the thousands in our megachurches today, soaking up the warm entertainment offered to them every week, I want to put it to you that we have lost Christianity. Despite the Christian books now found in every Walmart, and the “crossover” of Christian artists into the mainstream, and our Christian mega-stores and CD’s and DVD’s and Study-Bibles, I want to put it to you that we have lost Christianity.

Despite our lavish Cathedrals in the suburbs (‘Charismatic or not)
with their pastel hues and comfortable pews, their projector screens
and $30,000 sound systems, I want to put it to you that we have
utterly lost Christianity.

We left it behind somewhere when we shifted our churches from
the inner city into the “comfortable” suburbs. We left it behind when
we stopped welcoming the bums off the street into our meetings
and started welcoming only the “respectable” people. We left it
behind when we stopped preaching “take up your cross” and
turned the gospel into a success formula – ‘Seven Steps to your
Best Life Now.’

Somewhere in our comfortable suburban streetscape with its
manicured lawns we lost the real thing. Somehow in our concern
for “property values” and a better ‘dental plan’ we left it behind.
But that is not the worst part of it. The worst part is that we don’t
know how to get it back again. Or perhaps we don’t really WANT
to get it back again. The cost simply doesn’t bear thinking about,
does it? And so, as we drive around in our nice shiny cars with
our groovy plastic toys, and attend “church” as we know it twice
a week for 2 hours;- As we live a life that is about as unlike
Jesus as you can get, a life of comfort and coddling undreamt
of by billions around the world;- a lifestyle in the top 10% of the
earth today (-in debt up to our eyeballs all the while) – the fact
is that we don’t really CARE that we have lost original Christianity,
do we? We are too busy, man. Don’t bother us with that kind of talk.

It will all be OK, the preacher tells us. We will all make it to heaven
in the end. We are all “decent” people here. We have “prayed the
little prayer”. We have ‘given our heart to the Lord’.

But what is this? What is that thundering voice I hear? “DEPART
FROM ME.” ‘But LORD… But LORD….’

“I said – ‘DEPART FROM ME’. Don’t call me Lord. You never truly
lived like I was your Lord and you know it. For I was hungry and
you gave me no food; I was thirsty and you gave me no drink; I
was a stranger and you did not take me in; naked, and you did
not clothe me; sick and in prison, and you did not visit me….”

What is the essence of true Christianity that we have lost, my
friends? It is simply described by James as follows- “Pure religion
and undefiled is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” (Ja 1:27).

5 Responses to “We’ve lost Christianity-Andrew Strom”

Wow. This has been on my mind a lot lately. I think many believers are becoming “worldly Christians”. We get too comfortable in our churches and our nice lives and we forget that we were created for so much more than living to meet our own selfish desires.

appolussaid

Indeed Anna. It is hard to tell the average self professing Christian from those of the world. The passion for Jesus, an all consuming passion that drives us forward, is , for the most part missing today……………….bro Frank

While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. (John 17:12)

We must be very careful in the spirit how we measure apparent success or failure. Looking to the many and making statements like this brother has made may seem helpful, even accurate, it is not in my opinion. The Master knows those who are His, and their condition. He is not counting as we count, or measuring as we do. The church on the corner has perhaps for some time ceased to be in His fold, so it is no surprise that the world has overtaken it.

There is a remnant, and we know not where they are, who they are, but they are true, they are His, they are incorruptible, they have forsaken all to follow Him, their lives flow out of Him, they are in Him as much as He is in them.

So let us take heart dear ones, He is coming, and behold He has lost none which the Father the Father gave Him expect the son of the dragon that the Word might be fulfilled.

appolussaid

HI bro Wayne, I agree with your statement. What I believe is that the above article, for many, perhaps even the majority, is their first step in truly having an understanding of who the Church is now and in fact has always been. It has always been the remnant. The institution of church, whether pre or post reformation, was never the Church yet it housed many of them for many complex reasons. It has taken the great falling away for people to truly realize the truth about an institution, not to be confused with God’s true Church, that has now come to bear the fruit of its vine. Only by abiding and clinging and being grafted into the true vine, can one truly belong to the Church, the Body of Christ which has been the same yesterday, today and forever and always bears the fruit of it’s vine………….bro Frank